


Little but a Silent Lump

by starsoverhead



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Forced Marriage, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, One-sided Conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsoverhead/pseuds/starsoverhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bit of an AU, disregards Thor: The Dark World as it's not out yet.  Jareth speaks to Loki after Odin has decided and enacted his punishment for his actions on Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little but a Silent Lump

You know, I offered for you.

Before now, I mean.

Yes, I offered for you long, long ago, not long after we first met. Or perhaps a bit longer. Sometimes the years tend to blend together when you've been alive so long as I. But I remembered you as a child. A sweet little dark-haired child who saw the wonder in my kingdom instead of the disgust and condescension from the others. How your eyes would light when you visited and how they would dim when you would leave, all for the sake of diplomacy.

You thrilled at seeing all of the creatures that live here. I remember your chasing fairies and chastising them not to bite you. Trying to take a pair home and Odin refusing when he came to fetch the two of you away. So I took to slipping you books instead. And I remember teaching you that little trick of tucking things away into nowhere so they would follow you where you went, always be at hand, but never weigh you down. Do you remember?

You seemed to dread returning to Asgard, especially as you grew older and your brother tended to want to break things more than learn, and I admit, I was always eager to see him go. He has little to no comprehension of delicacy and even less of the complex workings of magic. I can't even put my mind to the number of times that you and I had to fish him out of trouble, or how many times he nearly fell into the swamp.

But you were young, and I was thoroughly informed of how inappropriate it was for me to offer for one so young with myself being so old. You were so newly come to adulthood and I admitted that I had likely expressed my interest before prudency was allowed, so I conceded, stepped away, and in return, Odin stopped your visits to me and to my kingdom.

He couldn't, however, stop you from coming on your own, and to keep me away from diplomatic functions in Asgard? Why, that was unheard of at the time. I looked forward to your surprise visits and I always enjoyed finding you in the depths of my libraries. I will certainly say there are more books in there than I have the patience to read, but you? Ah, I'm almost certain you've read every last one.

It was one of the many feasts that I'd attended where I asked again. Years had passed, you were more firmly into adulthood, and I'll admit, I was at least a bit smitten by you. Your intellect, yes. Your ability to converse on subjects other than meat, ale, and weapons. Your very un-Asgardian manners where, though you smashed steins with the other warriors - and oh, I knew you had proven yourself, and was very proud of you - you also didn't go on and on at length about your triumphs of battle and get yourself so inebriated that you told the same war story over and over again.

We sat on one of the many balconies that night, me with my wine, looking up at the stars in their odd positions. I knew well how separate my kingdom was from yours, how different your life would have to be, but as we talked, wryly observing the celebration, I found myself admiring your hands. Delicate and strong at once, with long, nimble fingers that had often caught my eye when you read, how you could trace a line and make notes with so very little thought as to where your pen moved. Because you knew precisely where you were, and your handwriting was pristine.

But I watched your hands, and I watched your glittering green eyes, so perfectly set against ivory skin and hair like onyx and I knew I had to offer for you again. Selfish reasons, of course, as well as selfless. You always seemed so much happier in my company than when you were alone with Thor and his boisterous lot. So I offered, and again was refused.

Again and again, at feast after feast, decades, centuries, perhaps I made too much of a pest of myself, but I did try to keep it to every five years, every ten years, not year after year. It was quite a trial for one such as me, a king, used to getting anything I wished with just a snap of my fingers or a swoop of my hand. But the truth was that I had doomed myself, even as I had thought that I had found the ideal way to gain your presence in my life.

Odin never told you why he banned me from Asgard, did he? Oh, of course not. He likely simply told you that I stopped coming. That he invited me and I never came. That I hardened the walls of my kingdom against all intrusion and that was why you could never get past.

Far from it.

I saw you, in your tailored leathers, your green and gold and black, full of innate pride, full of confidence in yourself, and I knew I was more lost than I had ever been before. But this time, instead of simply asking Odin for your hand, I asked, for permission to court you and, if you said yes, to wed you - but only with your consent. His answer was concise and to the point, but it wasn't a simple 'no.'

Instead, he laughed. Sneered. He told me precisely what Asgard thought of 'men like me,' and at that, I laughed as well. And sneered. And I told him there were no men like me. He answered that I was correct, because someone like me could hardly become a man. And I know how Asgard thinks of men who do magic - and that Odin is the exception to his own rule Then, he told me that I had no right to come to Asgard and sully his younger son with my presence, and he cast me out. More quickly and more powerfully than I could quickly counter. And then he walled up all of the doors between my kingdom and his. Specifically, between me and Asgard. No matter how I tried to enter, I couldn't.

It was a form of mutual exclusion. I learned that after long study. My kingdom was only one wall. Every kingdom I visited, I carried the curse with me. If I was there, you couldn't be. It was really rather clever - he must have been working on it for many, many years, but then, I had asked many, many times. He had ample warning that I would ask again. And at that moment, it was a very good thing that Asgard was separated from me because if it hadn't been, there is a very good chance I would have levelled all of my magic against it.

I did all I could do, all that was left for me to do, then, and I gave you freedom. I stayed in my kingdom so that no other world would be barred to you. Now and then, there was news, but very little until just days ago.

He told me, you know, of your true parentage. He told me what you've done. He told me your side, though through his viewpoint.

I also know that at the moment, you detest me for allowing this glove-marriage to take place, but this was the nearest to a kindness that I could do for you. Without this, they would have you in a box in a dungeon for people to gawk at as if you were a wild creature in a menagerie. Here, you have all of my kingdom to make yourself free in, and you have at least some form of power as you are king alongside me. And more, they cannot find you here. You have nothing to fear from those outside forces that claimed your mind.

You also have my word. I will never force you to be more to me than you are right now, and you should know that right now, you are very little but a silent lump, and I'm quite well aware I've been speaking to you for quite a time now without even a hint that you've heard a word I've said. But I want you to know, Loki, that even if you never speak to me, or look at me, or so much as touch my hand, here, you are free. As free as I can make you.

Supper will be ready in an hour or so. You are, as ever, welcome, but something tells me that your seat at the table will be empty as ever.

Good evening, Loki. I look forward to speaking in your direction once again.


End file.
